


Mine's Buried in the Yard

by danehemmings



Series: Kakashi/Obito Drabbles [14]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2021-01-03 10:31:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21177959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danehemmings/pseuds/danehemmings
Summary: Thinking about Kakashi has Obito second-guessing his plans.





	Mine's Buried in the Yard

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Can I Exist' by missio

Obito wears gloves.

It’s because...because one hand is pale, white like Zetsu. Someone might ask too many questions about it.

His other hand, it’s the one he was born with. There's a few scars, twisting around his palm, but no one would ask about those. He covers it anyway, because why wear one glove when he has two?

In reality, he has hundreds of gloves. Thousands of them, littered around the Akatsuki complex. He's never gone more than a week with one pair. They get dirty.

They get dirty when he stabs, when he slashes, when he does what he must to save the world. To save Rin.

His hands – they don't get dirty. They stay clean, the red never seeping through the fabric. But that's not why he wears them.

~~

They call it the Bloody Mist. A fitting name, for the land responsible for Rin’s death. For the land he needs to control, to bring her back. Blood coats nearly everything here, and the more time Obito spends in Kirigakure, the more covered with it he becomes. His cause is just, so it matters little if he gets so covered in red that his skin stains (though his mask and gloves see that it doesn’t).

He enters the Akatsuki compound, and when Deidara spots him he makes a face.

“What have you gotten up to now, Tobi?”

Obito speaks with a joy he doesn’t feel, “I had some work to do in Kirigakure, Deidara-san!”

“We’re partners,” Deidara complains, “We’re supposed to do our assignments together.”

“Oh! But Pain made me swear not to take you,” Obito brings his hands up to clutch at the sides of his mask with mock horror, “I promise we can go together on the next one!”

Deidara has real horror on his face, “No, no, if Pain wants it to be just you…”

“It’s okay, Deidara-san! I know you missed me!” Obito flings his arms and rushes toward his partner for a hug, but Deidara steps to the side, leaving Obito to pretend to crash into the wall.

“Ow, ow ow!”

Deidara snickers.

The following day, they leave to capture the three tails. Deidara won’t stop yammering on about his art and how much he hates the sharingan. Obito makes sure to be extra obnoxious as Tobi in retaliation.

Inevitably, talk of the sharingan has Obito thinking of his own eyes. If Kakashi has discovered Kamui, then Obito may have to rethink some of his future plans. It’d be better not to face Kakashi in combat, as he might be able to discern his identity if Obito is also using Kamui.

They track down the three tails with relative ease. Obito lets Deidara do most of the grunt work, only stepping in when Deidara is about to make a mess. He can’t get Kakashi out of his mind, or Rin for that matter. Watching the three tails has him replaying the day of her death in his mind, over and over again. His only comfort is that he’s doing something to fix this world, to make sure no one ever has to go through what he did ever again.

~~

A few days after they’ve dealt with the three tails, Obito finds himself wandering around Konoha. He hasn’t been here since the Uchiha massacre, and it’s strange. The same woman runs the bakery he used to love, although her hair has gone grey. The buildings are all the same, and the people in the village are just as happy and warm as they’d always been. 

But Obito knows better now. These people are all naive. They haven’t really seen the world as it is, not like Obito has. They don’t know what it’s like to see your friends die, or to watch the life fade from someone’s eyes after you stick a kunei through their heart. They don’t understand what’s being sacrificed for their wellbeing. Most of them have probably forgotten what it was like to live during the war.

Obito can’t forget, not when he has a visual reminder every time he sees his gruesome reflection in the mirror, or when he has a bleeding hole in his heart where Rin used to be. He doesn’t want to forget, because if he did then he would settle. He’d live in this world, and forget about all the death and suffering that is allowing him to do so.

It’s still strange, though, to walk by his old apartment. He skips passing where Rin used to live. He doesn’t want to see what’s become of that place, where his good memories are left pure. He doesn’t want to know if her parents are still there, grieving as much as he is.

When Obito reaches Kakashi’s house, he stops. He enters quietly, wary of any defenses Kakashi may have, but nothing greets him but silence. Obito checks for his old teammate’s chakra signature, but he’s not there.

Obito does a sweep of the building anyways. He can’t exactly pinpoint why he came here in the first place. To get Kakashi out of his head, maybe. Beside Kakashi’s bed is a framed photo of Obito, Rin, Minato and Kakashi. Obito remembers the day it was taken, how he was so frustrated with Kakashi. How Rin had invited him to come to her house for dinner afterwards.

Obito realizes he’s clutching the frame so tightly that a hairline crack has appeared in the glass. He sets it down roughly, and gets out as fast as he can.

~~

He can’t leave Konoha, not yet. He’d meant to find Kakashi, to let himself feel that hatred for the man who let Rin die. Then he can go back to the Akatsuki. He can put the finishing touches on his careful plans. He can let Kakashi live or die without feeling anything, just as he did for Minato and Kushina.

Obito remembers all of Kakashi’s usual haunts. He checks the kunei store, the tea shop, even the graveyard (though he doesn’t get close enough to read any of the gravestones). Kakashi isn’t anywhere, and Obito is fearing he will have to go back to that house when he spots Kakashi at the training grounds.

This was the last place he wanted to check, because so many of his own memories with Rin feature these grounds. Kakashi isn’t training. He’s standing at a memorial, the one erected after the Third Great War. Obito realizes his name must be on it, and his heart feels like it’s opened up a new hole to bleed.

Obito hops into the trees nearby, and uses mokuton to hide himself from Kakashi’s view. He tries to force his feelings to go away. This trip was supposed to remind him how he hates Kakashi.

Kakashi is sniffling. He’s whispering something Obito can’t quite catch. His hand reaches out to touch a name on the stone.

“See you tomorrow,” Kakashi tells the stone. Obito watches him walk away.

~~

The visit to Konoha has put a wrench in his plans. Obito has told Pain and Konah to stop pursuing the tailed beasts, under the guise of needing to recruit more members first. After Hidan and Kakuzu, they’ve lost a third of the Akatsuki. Obito suspects Itachi doesn’t have much longer either, and so its a believable excuse to recruit. 

He doesn’t want to stop the Eye of the Moon plan. He just is confused. Kakashi has gotten into his heart as well as his head. Obito feels remorse, for some of the things he’s done. It’d all been worth it, before. He was going to have to sacrifice some for the greater good.

He can’t stand himself anymore. He purposefully lands himself in a fight with some bandits in the Mist, and he takes out his frustration on them. He makes it painful for them. He hates himself, because some part of him enjoys it. He wonders if maybe he just likes to terrorize and kill people. If he has become someone who inflicts pain onto the world for the sake of pain itself, instead of as an inevitable sacrifice.

The bandit’s blood doesn’t touch his skin, but he scrubs himself raw afterwards. He tries to wash away the guilt and shame he’s felt since watching Kakashi cry. He tries to scrub away his scars, as if that will turn him back into the person he was before he got them.

When he steps out of the shower, he doesn’t put his gloves back on.

~~

Obito takes the Gedo Statue into his Kamui dimension. The amount of chakra it takes is nearly enough to kill him, but it doesn’t matter. He won’t have Pain or Konan use it in his absence. Because that’s what he’s decided to do. Be absent.

He leaves the Akatsuki behind, with his mask left on his bedside table, and his gloves all tucked away. He’s not going to feed the part of him that likes to see how others suffer.

Obito doesn’t exactly know what he’s doing now. If his plans are on hold until he finds a less bloody way to achieve them, or if they are abandoned forever. He knows that by now, Sasuke will have likely killed Itachi. Obito was supposed to get Sasuke afterwards, and mold him the same way Madara had done to Obito. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. Maybe the boy will get a second chance in Konoha now. Maybe it might be okay for Sasuke to live in blissful oblivion, not knowing who his brother truly was.

Obito goes back to Konoha. He goes back to Kakashi’s apartment, and stretches out on Kakashi’s bed. He lets himself drift away. He figures since its Kakashi’s fault he’s so fucked up, then it’s up to Kakashi to tell him what to do.

“Shit!”

Obito sits up as Kakashi enters the room. Kakashi has two grocery bags in his hands and is about to throw both a bag and a kunei at Obito’s face. When he registers that it’s Obito, Kakashi drops the bags and the kunei.

“Obito?” Kakashi is suddenly sitting on the edge of the bed, right next to him.

Obito means to say something funny, something to get under Kakashi’s skin, but instead his eyes well up. A sob wretches its way out of his chest, unbidden. Obito was so busy feeling angry that he forgot how desperately sad he was. He tries to cover his face with his hands, but Kakashi pulls them away.

“Obito,” Kakashi says again, this time in a whisper. He tugs Obito into his arms. Obito buries his face in Kakashi’s neck. It’s miserable, to think that Kakashi is comforting him. Kakashi isn’t the cold person he used to be, though, and he rubs Obito’s back soothingly until he quiets.

When Obito pulls back, he sees that Kakashi’s eyes are wet. 

“How-?” Kakashi asks.

Obito shakes his head. He can’t talk about Madara right now, although he needs to. Kakashi is staring at him, either expecting an answer or expecting Obito to disappear. 

“I’ve done something,” Obito says. He needs Kakashi to know who he is now. 

Kakashi is the one to shake his head this time. “I don’t care. We’ve all done something.”

For the moment, it’s as simple as that.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, y'all


End file.
